Gel-like fluid designed to prevent wildfires

Scientists and engineers worked with state and local agencies to develop and test a long-lasting, environmentally benign fire-retarding material. If used on high-risk areas, the simple, affordable treatment could dramatically cut the number of fires that occur each year.

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Using high energy density material in electrode design enhances lithium sulfur batteries

To develop higher capacity batteries, researchers have looked to lithium sulfur batteries because of sulfur's high theoretical capacity and energy density. But there are still several problems to solve before they can be put into practical applications. The biggest is the shuttling effect that occurs during cycling. To solve this problem and improve lithium sulfur battery performance, the researchers created a sandwich-structured electrode using a novel material that traps polysulfides and increases the reaction kinetics.

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New biofabrication method creates one scaffold to guide regeneration of multiple tissues

Scientists have taken a major step to address the challenge of engineer tissues organized like native tissues. They have demonstrated a new method to fabricate scaffolds presenting spatially organized cues to control cell behavior locally within one material.

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Tetravinylallene, a small but powerful molecule, synthesized for first time

Many natural compounds used in medicine have complex molecular architectures that are difficult to recreate in the lab. Help could come from a small hydrocarbon molecule, called tetravinylallene, which has been synthesized for the first time by scientists. Tetravinylallene can be used to construct complex molecular frameworks more quickly and with less environmental impact than by using established methods.

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Physicists score double hit in LED research

In 2 breakthroughs in the realm of photonics, researchers are reporting the successful demonstration of an LED (light-emitting diode) based on half-light half-matter quasiparticles in atomically thin materials. This is also the first successful test of an electrically driven light emitter using atomically thin semiconductors embedded in a light trapping structure (optical cavity).

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Converting CO2 to valuable resources with the help of nanoparticles

An international research team has used nanoparticles to convert carbon dioxide into valuable raw materials. Scientists have adopted the principle from enzymes that produce complex molecules in multi-step reactions. The team transferred this mechanism to metallic nanoparticles, also known as nanozymes. The chemists used carbon dioxide to produce ethanol and propanol, which are common raw materials for the chemical industry.

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